A VIEW FROM THE PAST

It was pointed out to me by Iain Mitchell that Peter Ustinov’s comments made about Senator Joseph  McCarthy in 1954 would apply almost directly to Donald Trump. The passage below is from Ustinov’s autobiography Dear Me. Ustinov was, at the time, in California, and was  cast in a film We’re No Angels together with Humphrey Bogart and Aldo Ray. During filming in 1954, he was asked by the BBC to make comment on the Army-McCarthy hearings which took place in Washingtonm DC between April and June 1954. It was also at that time on the 4th June 1954 that Mr Ustinov’s daughter Pavla was born in Santa Monica. Ustinov recorded the piece in a studio at Don Lee Mutual Broadcasting. It is well worth a read and does indeed strike a cord.

Demagogues have come and gone over the years, and display much the same narcissistic and obsessive nature. How they manage to bamboozle so many people who ought to know better is the mystery. You will also note, in the final paragraph, the view Mr Ustinov held of the United States at the time. That view is still held by many, but it is disappearing at the rate of knots, in the current climate, as  the windows are closing up.